Tag: Asuka / Kana

Time for another installment of the only main roster show I watch regularly: MIXED MATCH CHALLENGE! This is the September 25, 2018 installment which I missed because I moved and was redoing the interior of my new place and was staying somewhere with shitty internet for about a month. BACKLOG BAYBAY!

So this is Sumire Natsu’s debut match and she’s going up against the woman who would become Asuka, Kana. Talk about a trial by fire.

We get a little pre-match promo from Natsu before the bout, though what she says I could not say, since my knowledge of Japanese is pretty much non-existent. After that she makes her entrance, getting the Goldberg treatment, as she she shown walking from the backstage area out to the ring (she lacks Goldberg’s phalanx of cops).

Kana, still in her Nazi zombie phase, heads out next and the match gets underway. Sumire offers a handshake, but Kana does not wish to abide by the Code of Honor. Sumire unloads on Kana with a bunch of forearm strikes that Kana just kind of shrugs off before unloading with strikes of her own.

Kana spends the bulk of the match toying with the rookie, swatting her out of the air when she goes for dropkicks and halfheartedly kicking at Sumire when she ends up on the mat.

Sumire gets a couple near falls that basically do nothing but fire Kana up who tosses her around a bit and then gets her to tap out with an armbar about eight minutes into the match.

Random ladies hit the ring with icepacks and stuff to tend to Sumire and then Kana kneels down and shakes her hand. I guess in taking a hellacious beating, Sumire Natsu earned Kana’s respect.

We then get a post-match promo thing from Sumire recorded backstage, but again, I’ve got no idea what she was talking about.

Winner: Kana

I guess for a debut match it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sumire was good on the sell, but a lot of her offense looked kind of sloppy and it looked like she botched a couple things. Since this match took place five years ago, I know she gets much better than she was here but as a stand alone match this wasn’t particular inspired. [*⅔]

It’s time for the finals of the Mixed Match Challenge. The commentary team of Michael Cole, Corey Graves and Beth Phoenix welcome us to the show and show us how to use our phones before throwing it backstage where Rusev and Lana are shown dicking around on their phones. Rusev is claiming that good ol’ Bob Roode is a cheater. Elsewhere backstage Big E and Lana are also dicking around on their phones and eating pancakes out of a little briefcase.

We start today’s episode of Mixed Match Challenge not with Corey Graves demonstrating how to use a smart phone but rather a serious looking Michael Cole telling us about the attack on SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan by those dastardly Canadians, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.

EMTs load Bryan unto a stretcher and wheel him away and Michael Cole informs us that we can check social media for updates on Daniel Bryan’s condition in the days to come.

Welcome everyone to another exciting episode of Mixed Match Challenge! The commentary team introduces us to the show and talks about swiping things left and right. We see Natalya and Nakamura hanging out in the back dicking around on their phones.

Welcome everyone to Monday Night Raw coming to you live from the Manhattan Center with your hosts Good Ol’ JR and Jerry “The King” Lawler. We’ve got the old wailing siren of yore and the entire thing is set up like an episode of Raw from 1993, complete with an ICOPRO banner.

Lawler promises that this will be the most memorable Raw ever. It would turn out that he was either gravely mistaken or outright lying…

It’s time for another episode of WWE’s Mixed Match Challenge on Facebook Watch or wherever you illegally downloaded it from if you live outside the United States. Our announce team are once again Michael Cole, Beth Phoenix and Corey Graves.

Time for some NXT. This week’s episode starts with a video package detailing Hideo Itami’s quest for respect and how it led to him butting heads with Kassius Ohno. These two will collide in a No DQ match tonight!

We get the opening video and then it’s off to Full Sail for wrestling action. Mauro Ranallo, Nigel McGuinness and Percy Watson are calling the action.

We start things off with a video package highlighting TakeOver: Brooklyn III while Code Orange plays. WWE always does a solid job of video packages and highlights and this is no exception.

We head to the Barclays Center for tonight’s wrestling action which means these matches were recorded prior to TakeOver and that they’re more or less going to be wrestling for wrestling’s sake, which is fine by me.

Time for a wrestling show! Time for NXT TakeOver! We kick things off with a band called Code Orange rocking out live while some sort of video package for TakeOver plays. Code Orange is pretty good and I’ll probably check them out at some point in the future.

It’s a fine way to open the show since it’s different and doesn’t really fuck with the flow of the show the way musical performances in the middle of wrestling shows generally do.